(please move to structured) Novice landscape

[Spenser]

Hello, long time lurker but thought I would post for critique, I hope I've done this correctly.

I am very new to painting landscapes, and to using oils. This is done from one of my own photographs, on canvas. I would appreciate critique, good and bad, so I can learn. Thankyou

[Peterbg]

Hi Spenser! I am new to the landscape and oils too.O.k! It will be little long.First,
when you start a landscape is to establish the line of horizon-low or high and decide from where the light is coming. Yours seems to be in the middle.Low or high horizon will lead and help you for the next step-main masses.For this part I found that thumbnails are very helpful.Small as a matchbox,drawn with pencil,ink..what you have.Make them fast,just outlining main masses.Do not pay attention to the detail.You may need many of them before the composition is right.Compare them.If you are not satisfied set them apart,do something else.Return to them later,make more.They do not take too much time, but will safe you major errors and time later.The sky is very interesting.Middle ground trees-the top of the trees makes too sharp contrast with the sky.There are few branches behind these trees on the left that are blocking the sky.By my opinion they are not necessary.Shadows-the sunlight is coming from right and is low.Therefore the shadows will be longer and will fell on the water surface.When establishing the shadows remember-when the sun is near the horizon vertical objects are catching more light on the top than the ground. The more the sun is going toward the zenith the ground is receiving more light.The shadows are getting shorter.
I hope that you will accept this not as critique but as an advice and I will be glad if I helped you with something.
Peter!

[Spenser]

Thank you, Peter

Your response is very helpful and makes perfect sense to me. I welcome all comments and suggestions and I appreciate your advice very much. I am really struggling with branches, and being able to get very fine lines with oils (wet on wet). I can try to fade those ones on the right out, and see if I can pay attention to the shadows. What you said about the horizon line, I missed that part when completely when I decided to paint this scene. And now I see exactly what you mean! Too late to fix it in this one, maybe, but you can be sure I'll remember it when planning all my next compositions! Thank you!

Anyone else like to comment? I see it might take some time for this post to get moved to structured, so feel free to chime in.

Spense

[gouligann]

Hi Spense, when I saw your painting, I immediately thought that you might want to read about painting trees with Stapleton Kerns. I delightfully came across his blog site when I did a search and was struggling with painting trees myself. He not only explains things, he shows wonderful examples of what he is trying to express.

This one is about how trees/branches grow: http://stapletonkearns.blogspot.com/...sful-buds.html

This one is about painting branches against the sky:
http://stapletonkearns.blogspot.com/search/label/trees


This section focuses on sky holes. I feel that yours are too bright and this explains how to use them:
http://stapletonkearns.blogspot.com/...y-holes-2.html

I hope you'll find his blog site a wealth of information like I did. These are only three links to the many links he has about painting trees.
Ann

[Spenser]

Thank you, Ann.
Those are great links, and I do need to work on how to paint trees! I actually removed the trees on the left and almost all branches from the large tree. I have put the painting aside, however, because it seems a waste of time to complete it when the composition is all wrong. But the link you provided is a wealth of information that I will go back to again and again. Thanks!

[MarkMark]

I think you have done very wel with this. There is a nice sense of structure, composition and and interplay of colour. Depending on what sort of efwct you are after it is possible that your tree branches in the backround are a little thick. Im not sure what the yellow thing is by the tree, I am assuming it is a chair. Either way it does nothing for the comp or the painting and might very well be distracting. You could possibly push some of the shawdows a little further to increase the sense of sunlight dappling through the trees ( I assume this is what was going on).. All in all well done

[Spenser]

Thank you, MarkMark

A couple of weeks ago, I cleaned/painted off a lot of the branches and background trees, and let it sit until this morning. I only just started to bring back in some details within the last hour, so here is where I am with it. The light blotch in the sky is just where I began to add some paint, but realized I need to figure out the branching first. At this point, I don't know what the point of interest should be, as there really isn't one in the reference. It was simply a 'scene' that I didn't think through. Anyway, how does it look at this point? Please forgive lousy picture quality.

Any comments and suggestions are welcomed. Thanks!

[KAScott]

Very nice job handing the tones and shades of the banks.

Can see you did some reading about painting trees and applied it to the large bare tree.....

That poor tree...... hate to say it put I would dump it. You did a great job with it and the bare banches BUT

(1) What in bejesus did it do to get so huge as compared to the adjoining treess? The adjoing greenery is too big to be scrubby shrubs so they must be trees.

(2) If the others are green, then either the big one needs leaves or it is a huge huge out-sized dead tree.

(3) I would get rid of iit - the treee, not the painting - and change the center of interest.

Try eliminating that big dead tree and putting a canoe (nice red one or bright turquoise maybe?) pulled 1/2 way up on the bank in the u-curve of the foreground shore. Maybe the point between the rock and where the land juts out.

Fudge in a some low weeds/brush where the tree base was.

Then give it some bodacious clouds (take a look at ALfred Sisley's work. Man painted skies & clouds like no other Impressionist.)

Dance some light areas in the water to reflect the clouds and a little dark to make ripples or gentle movement in the water.

Call it done.